


You have an interesting mind, Mr. Scamander.

by Vindsie



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Extended Scene, Interrogation scene, M/M, Memory Alteration, a plethora of invented memories for Newt, forced legilimency warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 22:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11194563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vindsie/pseuds/Vindsie
Summary: “What does Albus see in you?” Graves repeated softly, boring into Newt’s blue eyes with his own.It was not unlike looking into the eyes of a hippogriff, at first; there was pride, and charm in Graves’s dark eyes, and an arrogant need to dominate. Newt fought his instinct to look away and tried not to blink, to let the creature know it could trust him. But the longer he held Graves’s eyes, the more deeply disturbing he felt the experience.





	You have an interesting mind, Mr. Scamander.

**Author's Note:**

> what it says on the tin! 
> 
> In other words, a short expansion of the scene which (turned me on?) intrigued me in the film. With added legilimency!interrogation and Newt!background with #angst and such ;)

“Come along,” said the wizard, “There’s no reason we can’t do this the easy way.”

“Ah, take Goldstein as well,” said a voice. It had issued from a memo, this one folded into a rat that scampered near the Congress wizard’s heel. The origami in combination with the imperious tone made Jacob start, though Newt and Porpentina seemed accustomed to such incongruity.

The wizard leading them turned to Tina and said, “You used to be so by-the-book. And now… Turning yourself in and trying to explain away another public scene? Golly, Tina,” he clicked his tongue. “Abernathy was right about you.”

Porpentina ignored him, though her face gave a faint twitch. Newt’s eyes had fallen onto her face at just that moment, and he thought of Dougal when he foresaw a future probability he did not like.

They were led into another cramped black cell, this one brightly lit. Newt moved to stand with Tina, but the wizard directed him toward one of two chairs at a square table. The surface of the table was bare, and Newt wondered what protections of British citizens, if any, the Americans would honor. He had not heard anything of his Floo call… perhaps Graves would offer? He was loath to involve his brother, but Theseus was good at clearing up legal matters quickly.

The Director of Magical Security settled himself opposite Newt.

Newt tried to concentrate on the situation at hand, but his mind drifted as though of its own accord. He thought of Frank, never seeing the wilds of Arizona, and of the little girl in Sudan and how he should have tried mind magic in combination with stabilizing potions and stasis charms, and how Leta probably did not remember her thirteenth birthday and yet he vividly recalled her yellow frock and her infectious laugh…whenever Graves put a question to him, Newt forced himself to respond by addressing his words exclusively to Tina.

“You are an interesting man, Mr. Scamander,” Graves was saying. He was doing his utmost to meet Newt’s skittish gaze.

Newt wasn’t sure he followed the interrogation from there. It sounded very much as if Graves wanted to implicate him in the political counter-current sweeping much of Europe and now, perhaps, America. Did Graves believe Newt was one of the fascist followers of the Dark Lord, that he would slaughter Muggles as effectively as wizards exterminated beasts? Newt thought of Jacob and of Frank. He met Graves’s eyes.

“I’m not one of Grindelwald’s fanatics,” he said.

At Newt’s words, the room seemed to fizzle curiously. His ears popped and his breathing stuttered. It was as though he and Graves were suddenly in a bubble of dense, transparent liquid. Sound and sight could not penetrate into the bubble. Newt saw that Porpentina’s face was fixed, her eyes wide and unseeing as though she was in a trance. The tip of Graves’s wand glowed lilac.

The unfamiliar, profoundly dense magic worked by the auror made it difficult to move or speak. Newt could only sit and stare as a shadow fell across the part of the table that held his gaze.

“You seem very insistent that your creatures pose no threat to this city, Mr. Scamander,” said Graves, who had no problem moving or talking. “I wonder. What made Albus Dumbledore so fond of you? What made him wish to keep you at Hogwarts? Did you warrant watching?”

When the magizoologist tried to avert his gaze, the auror brought his wand to Newt’s cheek and guided his attention back. The glowing wand-tip radiated cold onto Newt’s face.

“What does Albus see in you?” Graves repeated softly, boring into Newt’s blue eyes with his own.

It was not unlike looking into the eyes of a hippogriff, at first; there was pride, and charm in Graves’s dark eyes, and an arrogant need to dominate. Newt fought his instinct to look away and tried not to blink, to let the creature know it could trust him. But the longer he held Graves’s eyes, the more deeply disturbing he felt the experience. There was intense narcissism, like that of the Antipodean Opaleye, and a burning cold. Beyond the initial gleam of curiosity was something mischievous and then something chill, and calculating. This something put Newt in mind of the pair of Lethifolds he had seen in the tropics and their rippling inky movements, the momentary relaxation before the predatory envelopment… Lethifolds consumed souls as well as bodies, Newt thought suddenly.

He felt the reverberations of laughter before he heard a low chuckle, almost a purring at his left ear. Then there was the familiar sensation of a mind not his own prying through his memories. But this was no warm grazing of thoughts, as Queenie had performed it. A foreign mind was methodically going through his memories, searching with intense curiosity for someone or something…

Leta was ordering him to stick a fork into a Muggle outlet, and laughing when he was thrown back. Newt remembered the pain of her laugh, and the pain of electrocution. He had been bitten, scratched, and stung by many venomous creatures on his travels since then, but this sort of shock was still one of his least favorite sensations. Leta was looking at him with repentant dark eyes now, apologizing, patting his scorched hair.

A Blast-Ended Skrewt was chasing after several Bowtruckles, and it was all fun and games as long as it wasn’t breathing fire from its firecrab-end. Newt spelled a barrier, and the Bowtruckles slipped through the grating, waving at the Skrewt, which belched a cloud of smoke at them. Newt had been neglecting to shave, and the Skrewt snapped at his short beard in affection. He patted it around its armored middle. He really needed some fences or enclosures for this fantastic new case.

Inez writhed in pain, and Newt was pouring essence of Murtlap onto her wounds, working quickly, murmuring under his breath, praying for time. He kept a mirror near at hand, spelled to vibrate and heat up if another pair of eyes was reflected in it. They had to move before it returned, and the dank passage was crawling with Grindylows. Why had Leta invited such a creature here? Newt’s hopes rested on the merepeople, if he could get to the lake. Inez was looking paler by the moment… Newt felt he might be sick, he gulped down his nausea and recited the healing charms he thought might help.

He was safe. He sipped the tea and stared at the painting of the unicorn above Kettleburn’s desk and felt warm despite the swirling snow outside the windows of the tower office. The unicorn was grazing serenely on the same patch of clover.

Kettleburn sputtered. “You’ve met a centaur? Newton, that’s terrific! When? What did it say? …you should not be wandering near the forest alone, young man,” he added, shaking a finger at Newt. The gesture did not hide Kettleburn’s smile.

The Obscurus hovered, malignantly black and branching, near the roof of the hut. There were tear-tracks on Newt’s face, and on the girl’s. He had separated her from the parasite—an unprecedented feat of magical surgery, of vivisection, he thought with cold, dawning horror. Her parents would not understand. He closed the girl’s dark eyelids, and her tears mingled with his on his hand. He rose and conjured up a bubble to house the Obscurus, and he wicked it away with air currents from his wand, away into the prepared enclosure in his case, away into a tundra devoid of life. On the way out of his case, he stopped to see Frank. The lightning show was frightening, but Frank sensed his mood and quieted. Newt held out his hand and Frank approached and lay his massive golden beak onto Newt’s forearm. Three pairs of wings settled smoothly on gold-brown flanks. Frank’s scarring had healed nicely beneath his glossy new feathers.

He was bowing, just as mother had told him. Tolstoy looked long and hard at him with flame-colored eyes, and finally, he bowed in return. The feeling of elation stays with eight-year-old Newt for his whole life. This memory is bright and blurred and strong – he visits Tolstoy whenever he needs to conjure a Patronus, this and his first flight on the creature’s back, his mother whooping from the ground below.

Aberforth eyed the mooncalves and the goats in the tiny enclosure, Newt standing beside him in his drab, black Ministry robes.

“I applied for the license twice already, ruddy owls keep losing it,” said the barkeep. He nudged a goat with his calloused palm, and it batted its head. “Pesky creatures. Useless.”

“I’ll take them off your hands,” said Newt, suppressing some emotion. “Ten sickles?”

“Keep the change,” said Aberforth, giving Newt a sack heavy with coins. “But don’t touch my goats.”

Sunlight gleamed off the silverware in the Great Hall. He was jabbing at toast with his fork at the Hufflepuff table, sitting apart, when an owl swooped down and upset a goblet of pumpkin juice onto his plate. Newt took the red letter with trembling hands. His father had been disappointed in his Sorting. His mother had sent him photographs of the hippogriffs back home to cheer him after the Howler. Theseus had tried to laugh it off, had made faces at him from the Gryffindor table.

Professor Dumbledore was gauging the truth of his testimony, light blue eyes wide and piercing. Newt’s head ached in the memory and doubly in the present. Graves was focused on Professor Dumbledore.

“This is not a sacrifice to be made lightly,” Dumbledore said at last, when Newt had averted his gaze, “But I see you have decided. The Board of Governors and Headmaster Dippet have accepted your story, and they will stop at nothing short of expulsion. I will appeal to the Wizengamot on the grounds that this was an unfortunate accident. Perhaps we can prevent them from snapping your wand, Mr. Scamander.” Dumbledore paused and brought a hand to rest on Newt’s shoulder. “I am sorry it turned out this way, Newt.”

“Sorry it turned out this way?” said Graves. He seemed to savor Dumbledore’s words as he formed them, his voice a lilting echo that lacked the Professor’s sincerity.

Newt could see Graves’s fervent, dark eyes as though layered atop his memory of Dumbledore turning to leave. They were much too close. Those dark brows furrowed in an intent, fixated scowl. A hand clutched Newt by the hair at the back of his head, a wand poked his left cheek. They were centimeters apart.

“Have you known sorrow?” said Graves, and Newt winced as the hand in his hair tightened into a fist. It seemed Graves was speaking to his memory, staring through him at the retreating figure. And perhaps it was the adrenaline from having a wand pressed to his face or the wizard digging through his mind, but Newt’s mind bounded back. Against his instincts and his will, his magic lashed out and latched onto that of Graves, and Newt was seeing flashes of spells cast nonverbally, deflected and sent back in rapid succession.

His opponent—was that a young Professor Dumbledore in flowing blue robes, his beard mere dark stubble, his hair dark and tied back with a ribbon?—took the instant he had left himself open. A flutter of blue ribbon. A flash of red light. A Severing Spell hit his shoulder and a gash opened up, adrenaline dulling the pain. Blood bubbled down his silver-rimmed robes, staining them instantly brown and burgundy. Rather than go in for the kill, Dumbledore rushed to heal the gash. He—the wizard in the bloodied silver and black robes—was laughing, exhilarated, throwing blond curls back from his face.

“Lucky break, Al,” said the injured wizard, and his opponent beamed at him, felt his vulnerability was charming, wished to protect him…

He was searching through stacks of books, through crumbling manuscripts and crackling scrolls, and everywhere that symbol dogged him; the triangle circle and line, that line to him was most significant, and he would find it, and all the rest of them…

Graves was writhing under his wand, and then he stilled and moved no more, an identical Graves standing over a corpse-like image of himself, condescending triumph on his pale face.

Newt snapped back to himself, cold and clammy and breathing hard. His hands were bound and he was slouched in the chair of the interrogation chamber. Graves had taken a step back. The Director looked bemused, almost insulted. His brow was contorted and his bushy eyebrows were tilted at slightly different angles. And then he brought a finger to his lips thoughtfully, and his mouth curved, and he was shushing Newt with a strange, sly smile, eyes glinting brightly.

“Mind your own memories,” Graves’s voice was lighter than usual, and hoarse. He bared his teeth, a habit Newt had not noticed in him before, and offered Newt a beaming, somewhat sinister grin. “Lest you lose them, little lizard. Obliviate.”

Newt blinked.

His eyes were watery. His lips felt dry. His head ached.

Had he been crying?

“You are an interesting man, Mr. Scamander,” Graves was saying.

Porpentina’s frightened eyes flicked between the two men.

Newt wasn’t sure he followed the interrogation from there. It sounded very much as if Graves wanted to implicate him in the political counter-current sweeping much of Europe and America…

“I’m not one of Grindelwald’s fanatics,” he said.

Graves smiled a grim smile.

“Yet you brought such very dangerous creatures to New York,” he said, and bringing out Newt’s suitcase, he summoned the Obscurial to hover between them. Newt tried to explain to Tina, tried to make her understand, through his headache, that he had not brought anything really dangerous to New York.

“Useless?” said Newt, bewildered, when Graves betrayed some utilitarian motive.

“The death penalty. Do it immediately,” said Graves, “And take the No-Maj’s memories.”

As Porpentina and Newt were dragged from the room, Graves stared at the Obscurial with a strange fire in his shrewd gaze.

He was not sorry it turned out this way. But perhaps the little fool did not need to die? If he were kept alive he might, like Percival Graves, prove useful. But it was risky to lock him up indefinitely. Graves rose to stalk to his office and leave the case secured inside. He warded the door against magical tampering.

He could still feel that soft hair in his grasp, the arch of the neck from where he pulled, the wizard’s gaze forced level with his own. The blue eyes were darker than Albus’s, and somehow softer, but not altogether dissimilar… He could stay the execution, delay for a day, could hollow out that messy-haired head of its silvery thoughts, could peruse them slowly and attentively for any news of Albus in Graves’s Congressional Pensieve, or hold those convenient waves of hair to force the little lizard to meet his gaze… Yes. He could easily dispose of him after. He had been angry at the intrusion into his memories, but it was not unimpressive. And now he had the case full of creatures to use as necessary… The same small, sly smile etched itself in unfamiliar lines across Graves’s face.

When he had reached the lower levels of the building, the halls were in chaos. When he had doubled back to his office, he discovered the case and wands missing. When he rounded on the unconscious team of aurors, he vowed he would find Scamander. He did not know if he wished to destroy the magizoologist or compel him into subservience. Perhaps first one and then the other, or a delightful admixture of both at once. But if the little lizard did not have a useful Obscurial, he had other sources, eggs in other baskets, as Albus was fond of saying… He would go to see the Salem boy, who perhaps needed some encouragement. Graves Apparated, his black and silver coat swirling about him.

**Author's Note:**

> dear reader(s), 
> 
> you may have noticed that I've left the Original Percy alive in a throwaway line. I've grown rather attached to our gruff, beautifully dressed and mostly fanon-invented Percy, and Percy/Newt warms me to the cockles of my heart, as Tony Stark might say. The Grindelwald/Newt here is fairly one-sided (and indeed, mostly implied, if bordering on non-con). So, you know, I'm open to Percy/Newt h/c -- one of my favorites, actually. 
> 
> to state the obvious: Newt's memories are, of course, invented -- but they are invented to suit canon, to the best of my abilities. Grindelwald's perspective on events at the end there was quite fun to write. I am trying to understand both characters, for we got but a short glimpse of GG, and villains need be compelling to be convincing. (Newt is already compelling enough, clearly)
> 
> I've been working on a movie sequel, of sorts, set in this universe but down the line... if y'all are enjoying this, please let me know. I will certainly be flattered, honored, and motivated by any feedback you're willing to provide! <3


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